Ice Palace

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The Castle of Bones loomed over her now. It certainly deserved the capital letters, up this close... The pillars at the entrance were hundreds of feet high. Each of the steps leading up was taller than a man. They were the grey-green of old ice. Ice. Not bone. There were faintly familiar shapes to the pillars, possibly a suggestion of femur or skull, but it was made of ice.

Some of the ice/snow based like character from Anpanman live inside one, such as the Ice Queen and Princess Aurora.

Comic Books

Superman's Fortress of Solitude is, at least in modern comics, an Ice Palace. This largely comes from the Donner films, however; see the example under Films. It is true that the Fortress was located in the arctic since the Silver Age, but it wasn't depicted as being made from ice until the films.

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Naturally, Queen Elsa in Frozen builds an enormous, beautiful Ice Palace during the course of her song "Let It Go". It ends up reflecting her emotions — growing more frightening the more scared she becomes, with icicles spiking out everywhere and changing to darker colours. It returns to normal after Marshmallow makes it his home.

By the end of the movie, she's made the castle in Arendelle into a second ice palace, coating a good portion of the castle's roofing in ice, adding a giant snowflake to the tallest spire, and creating snowflake-shaped ice sculptures in the courtyard fountains. While merely an exterior change, it symbolizes Elsa being more at peace with herself, combining the home she made for herself to be free in though it meant shed have to be alone, and the home she always had and was filled with love for her, though she could not let it in, and had to shut away who she really was.

Films — Live-Action

The depiction of Superman's Fortress of Solitude as an Ice Palace really comes from the Richard Donner-directed Superman films starring Christopher Reeve. Since then, that idea has migrated into the comics and into certain television portrayals as well.

In a rare non-fantasy and non-Sci-Fi example, Gustav Graves in Die Another Day has an ice palace in the middle of Iceland. Needless to say, Bond soon trashes the place.

The Arctic World hideout in Batman Returns isn't a literal Ice Palace, being a former zoo exhibit. However, it is very, very cold (thanks in part to a massive air-conditioning apparatus), features a cathedral-like skylight, and is ruled by the Penguin as if he were a king (he even sits on a throne).

In the third Lone Wolf game book, The Caverns of Kalte, the ice-fortress of Ikaya is, well, an ice-fortress. The fortress of the Deathlord of Ixia is located in an arctic or subarctic region, but it isn't quite an Ice Palace.

In Wintersmith, once the title character has become capable of understanding why it would, it creates an ice palace for it and the Summer Lady to live in.

The Castle of Bones, home of the title character in Hogfather is not made of bones but of ancient ice, with occasional hints that it was once sculpted to look like bone. And in the absence of its owner, it quickly collapses.

Ryujin, the Shinto dragon god of the sea, has four halls in his palace that correspond to the seasons. The hall of Winter is like this, and is beautiful, but—since they also refer to the seasons of human life—no mortal who enters it can return.

Snowhead Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Inside the temple are large chunks of ice that can only be defrosted with Fire Arrows (technically with Hot Spring Water as well, but it's impractical to try to use them as they cool over time, losing their effect).

Snowpeak Ruins in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It's not made of ice, but instead is a ruined manor that has frozen over. This one is actually inhabited, by two friendly Yeti—the ice is a non-issue and the monsters just household pests to them.

Temple of Ice in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. It is where the Azurine, one of the Pure Metals needed to forge the Phantom Sword, lies. In addition to slippery floors, it has several pits that can only be avoided with the help of the Grappling Hook.

The Snow Temple in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, which not only has slippery ice but also dense snowy terrain, where the White Wolfos are better at moving through than Link. Large bells are hit with the Boomerang to open doors.

The Ice Ruins in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, located in the eastern side of Lorule's Death Mountain, where Turtle Rock was in A Link to the Past (and is now where the Ice Palace was in the 1992 game, namely in the lake). The Fire Rod is required to melt the large ice blocks that obstruct Link's progress.

The last level of World 4 in Super Mario Bros. 2 has not one, but two tall towers full of ice. The first has to be climbed upward while avoiding the incoming Flurries, while the latter is accessed for the descent and requires some Cranium Ride due to the abundance of Spikes of Doom. There's a third building shortly afterwards, but its only content is the entrance to the world's boss (Fryguy).

The second Ice Land mini-fortress in Super Mario Bros. 3 (in contrast, the other two are warm on the inside). The frozen floor makes dodging the Thwomps a difficult task.

In the grim Northern parts on Sunless Sea's Zee lies the gigantic and ominous Frostfound, a giant ice castle encrusted in ice with a complex set of spires circling around it. An Eldritch Location in its purest form, it was created by a Judgement and is therefore rife with Correspondence sigils, and its insides are even worse. Entering it is an affront to the Gods of the Zee and will rob you of all your stories and self.

Half the settings of Battlefield 2142 are located in a Europe that is steadily being overtaken by massive glaciers. The other half are the African settings that all the survivors are trying to occupy.

In Secret of Mana, the Ice Palace deep inside the Ice Country, a frozen castle filled with icy monsters. Strangely enough, the Mana Seed of Fire can be found here, after being smuggled into the palace by the Frost Gigas, also known as Santa Claus. Yes, Santa Claus. And later, in the prequelChildren of Mana, a snowed in castle appears.

Played straight in one level of Light Crusader — except the boss turns out to be a fire-breathing dragon.

Glacia in Skies of Arcadia is an entire city made of ice, found clinging to the underside of a Floating Continent resembling Antarctica and originally founded by the (now-missing) Purple Moon Civilization.

Tundaria Tower and the Mars Lighthouse in Golden Sun, the latter being a Fire/Lava based dungeon after you defrost it, technically making it a Hail Fire Peaks level.

The sixth dungeon, Wawku Shrine, in Ōkami. It's from here where the evil beings (under the command of owl monsters Lechku and Nechku) want to reduce the temperature of all of Kamui to absolute zero, and has several mechanical setpieces that remain functional despite the low temperatures.

In Baten Kaitos, we have Kaffaljidhma in the land of the witches, Wazn. However, unlike other examples, it holds no evil.

Icicle Pyramid from Diddy Kong Racing. Not evil, but it is used as a battle arena rather than a racetrack.

Although this trope is usually the territory of Winter Royal Ladies, Professor Coldheart is shown living in Coldheart Castle about half the time (the other half, in a mad scientist laboratory in whatever town he happens to be menacing that week).

Not a palace, and never actually realized, but there have been plans to build various large and labyrinthine structures, most famously HMS Habakkuk out of a frozen mix of water and wood pulp called "pykrete." The MythBusters had fun with this stuff during their second Alaska special episode.

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